


A River Casts No Shadow

by kianspo



Series: The Marriage Bargain [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Coda, David's POV, Erik Lehnsherr is not a Happy Bunny, Family Feels, M/M, it's not so bad I promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29858394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kianspo/pseuds/kianspo
Summary: This is a coda to the Marriage Bargain, and it takes place over 70 years after the events of the main fic. Charles and Erik's children, most notably David, reflect on the true nature of their parents' feelings for each other and learn to let go.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: The Marriage Bargain [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2195229
Comments: 14
Kudos: 76





	A River Casts No Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a coda that takes place 70+ years into the future. You see the warning, you know what this is about, please enter at your own risk. It's not so bad, I think. But that said, you lose nothing by skipping this, it just had to be set free.

\--

David Maximilian, Lord Xavier, is dreaming. He’s in his own garden, looking at a beautiful white rose. It feels as if the flower has always been here, yet he’d never before taken the time to look at it directly, suspecting he wouldn’t have been able to look away.

It’s white almost to a point where it’s emitting its own light. It’s so white that the petals even attain a slight bluish hue, as if frosted over. The rose is indeed eclipsing every other flower in the garden, everything else, in fact, drawing David in inexorably. He loves this flower. He loves it so deeply it hurts him. His heart begins to pound in his chest, the sound overwhelmingly loud, as he reaches out, unable to stop.

The stem breaks as he touches it, the rose falls to the ground and smashes into a thousand diamond-sharp pieces that fade instantly from existence. A thorn pierced his skin as it went down, and a single droplet of blood emerges.

David sits up in bed abruptly, chest heaving, mouth opened in a silent scream. He can do nothing but gasp for air, his lungs hurting, his heart whining in actual physical pain. For a few profoundly terrifying moments, he doesn’t feel it will ever relent, but with each new breath the terrible pressure recedes little by little, until it’s a dull ache that he immediately knows somehow is there to stay.

Beside him, Celeste stirs, emerging from the foam of silk and lace. She’s usually a heavy sleeper, especially resistant to early mornings, but now she sits up, alert and worried.

“David? What is it?”

“Father,” he says, and knows it to be true instantly. “I think he’s… I think he’s gone.”

Celeste sits up straighter, her eyes clear and focused, already confident in a plan of action while David is still reeling. This is why he loves her; this is why he still can’t believe sometimes that she married him.

“You have to go,” she says, reaching for the bell to summon his valet. “I will take care of the house and the Council. You need to see to Lord Erik.”

David nods numbly, and as his feet touch the floor, he feels the ground tremor slightly. It could be his imagination, except he’s certain it isn’t.

He rides out, blessing the relative emptiness of the streets in the morning. The usually bright City seems gloomy today, as if covered with a dusty veil like a country residence, abandoned at the end of summer. Only the waters of the bay are peaceful, joyfully greeting the rising sun.

Something is brewing in the air; David can sense it. He doesn’t think he’s imagining the tremors of the lampposts or the low whine coming from the Stark airship towers. He casts a wary look at those huge, mostly metallic constructions and sends his horse into a truly unwise gallop.

By the time he rides into the gates of his parents’ residence, the waters of the bay are no longer peaceful and the ground is shaking noticeably now. A panicked-looking groom runs out to catch the reins David throws at him as he rushes into the house with alacrity he hadn’t displayed since he was a small boy.

A pale-faced majordomo greets him in the doorway.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Your Grace. The Red Cloaks have only just left with the… They took your father.”

David closes his eyes for a moment, because oh, but what a heartless thing to do, even if it must be done. The old servant calling him by his father’s title feels like a knife through the heart, but he can’t afford to dwell on his own pain, not when he can hear the roar of disturbed water coming from outside.

“Lord Erik?” he asks.

“The rooftop, Your Grace,” the majordomo whispers, casting a terrified look upwards. “He barricaded himself up there just as the Order arrived. Please, hurry.”

David barely nods at him as he runs up the stairs three steps at a time.

As he bursts through the door onto the rooftop-turned-private-parlor where his fathers loved to sit in peace, watching the bay, the view that greets him is anything but peaceful.

Erik is standing at the very edge, hands gripping the railing, the metal flowing like streams of water in every direction. His back is to the entrance, but David knows exactly where his focus lies as the huge metal bridge connecting the island with the continent is shaking visibly, striving to lift up. And it’s not just the bridge. The entire City is groaning, every metal bone it has in it resonating with Erik's overpowering grief, threatening destruction.

“Papa, stop!” David shouts, rushing forward, even though he knows he’s not safe here. Erik's Gift will always preserve its wielder, but no one except for him is immune.

The bridge begins to shake, the pillars trembling visibly. There are people crossing, a couple of carriages. Their minds are ablaze with panic, and David can hear them scream.

“Papa, please!”

Erik only glances at him in panic, his hands gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles have gone white. He’s shaking too, and he _can’t_ stop, David realizes in horror. He’s just as much a helpless victim of his emotions right now as the people trapped on the dancing bridge. He’s not set on destroying everything in his anger. This whole time, he’s been fighting to get control of himself, to stop, but he can’t.

“Help me,” Erik croaks, his eyes wild, desperate. “David, help, I can’t… _Charles_ …”

David closes his eyes and dives into the mind that has been as familiar to him as his own his whole life. He’s met with chaos and devastation, the elegant bastions he knows so well crumbling down, jaded pieces smashing into each other, tearing, hurting. David reaches for the memories, doesn’t have to look far. He had discovered a long time ago that Erik's thoughts are always on Charles in some way, only the measure of his attention differs.

He can feel it within both their minds now, as Erik actually sighs a little in relief as David directs him to the ocean that contains Charles inside him. He’s been here before, but he has never followed Erik in. Now, he has to. He dives in, pulling Erik in by the hand, and as Erik's mind begins to relax, David is struck speechless.

What Erik feels, _still_ feels for Charles is… 

David loves his wife. He loves his wife, and before he met her, he had fallen in love many a time, and he loved his lovers. He’d lost his head over Damien. He was madly in love with Clarissa. And when he met Celeste, he could feel his heart settle, cradled gently in the deep soothing love that would last for the rest of his life.

What he is seeing now feels _nothing_ like that.

Erik's love for Charles is… overwhelming. Uncontrollable. Woven into every part of him, making _all_ of him tremble with the loss. It feels like being inside a tornado that tries to destroy that one house that is still somehow standing. It comes at it, again and again, only to dissipate helplessly at its borders. Erik loves Charles like a sixteen-year-old boy, with blinding passion, desperation, and urgency. He loves Charles like a man of forty, mature, and confident, and _knowing_ , disillusioned and all the more loyal for it. He loves Charles like an old man, one who had spent his entire life with his perfect partner, had learned to love his sharp edges and awkward corners and dark rooms. It’s not a linear progression. He loves Charles like that always, all at the same time, with no distinction, as if his love has evolved but also hasn’t changed at all, different and the same, everything blended together.

David can’t breathe. He can’t withstand it. Will combust if he spends more than a few seconds here. How, his shocked mind trembles. _How could they have endured this their entire lives?_

Somewhere deep inside, Erik's mind—no, his _soul_ , is whining softly like a mortally wounded animal. David’s heart nearly bursts with compassion, breaks when Erik turns to him because he recognizes the emotion, so similar to Charles's that it feels like a sweet, dragging torture. David cradles Erik's mind within his own, somewhere on the surface he knows tears are streaming down his face, but he doesn’t care. He reaches out for a memory, any memory from an infinite ocean.

_It’s a shock to see his father like that—as a young man, younger than David has ever seen him. It’s a beautiful day outside. Within a moment, David recognizes the familiar grounds of Iris Hall in the summer, the glade between the garden and the river._

_Charles is sitting on the low stone wall facing the river. He’s in his shirtsleeves, his hair is longer than David can ever remember seeing, and it’s a mess. He feels the urge to dive into it with his fingers and is horrified for a moment before he remembers that this is Erik's memory, Erik's emotion._

_Next to Charles is a boy of about twelve or thirteen with a round freckled face and bright copper hair. They are chatting and laughing, kicking their feet, carefree and happy. Charles glances over his shoulder suddenly, and a smile blooms on his face that makes David’s heart seize for a moment and the sun go dimmer for a few seconds. It’s not an exaggeration. Erik really_ feels _like it does._

_“Erik! You’re early!” He’s so unabashedly excited, David almost feels embarrassed for him. But that’s not what Erik is feeling. Erik's heart is beating too fast and too hard in his chest, his mouth goes dry, his hands cramp as he stifles the urge to reach out. “Come join us. Sean here has been telling me how he pretended to be a banshee to scare his neighbors.”_

_The boy turns, flushed bright red, and that’s another shock, because that’s Sean Cassidy, the man who has been running Iris Hall for the last thirty years._

_Erik comes closer, taking Charles's hand and squeezing it, most of his attention on the point of contact, the touch burning. It’s an effort for him to tear his eyes away from Charles's as he turns toward the boy._

_“Is that so?” Erik asks, pretending to be frowning. “And is that any way to treat your neighbors?”_

_Sean flushes even more, jumping to his feet. “Only the smith’s son and his friends!” he defends. “They were horribly mean to me! I didn’t know Peter’s mother would hear me or that I’d break every milk jug in her house! I didn’t know I swear!”_

_Erik's lips are twitching, and it’s a struggle to keep a strict demeanor. Charles is grinning outright, no doubt sensing it. They are still holding hands._

_“Did you help her clean up?” Erik asks, an eyebrow arched imperiously._

_“I… I didn’t say it were me…”_

_“And do you think that’s fair? To have saddled her with that much extra work and not even confess?”_

_Sean hangs his head. Charles gives Erik a mildly reproachful look, though he’s still smiling, and lets go of Erik to put his hands on Sean’s shoulders._

_“It’s not too late yet, Sean,” he says in a tone that sends painful tremors through David, because he_ knows _that tone so well._

 _His father always spoke to him in that tone whenever David made a mistake—all reason, acceptance, and steadfast compassion. Only, David has never heard that tone in a voice so young, on the verge of being the one he actually knows, being_ almost _there. He knows that somewhere outside, he’s weeping._

_He watches Charles send Sean off in a brighter mood and with a mission. The boy takes off like a stray firecracker, bare heels kicking high in the air as he runs. Erik comes to sit next to Charles, gazing at the river._

_“Everything all right?” Charles asks softly after a while, knocking his shoulder into Erik's gently. “You’re brooding.”_

_Erik turns to look at him. David shudders. Yes, his father’s eyes had always been quite arresting, but it’s a revelation still, like a kick in the gut, to experience them through Erik. To Erik, they are huge, devastatingly blue and bright, and absolutely magnetic. With a jolt, David realizes that Erik had never stopped looking at his father like that, exactly like that. David just never knew what it meant._

_“Spent an afternoon with Stark,” Erik grumbles._

_Charles laughs. It’s startling. Carefree, full belly laugh, head thrown back, eyes squinting. Erik wants to kiss him but he also wants to keep watching him, afraid to miss a second. It would be uncomfortable to witness, if it wasn’t so… beautiful._

_“Erik…”_

_“If you’re going to tell me he’s a joy to be around, you might as well save your breath, Charles.”_

_Charles shakes his head, still grinning. “Nah, Tony is a pain in the ass. But don’t even try to tell me you don’t enjoy bouncing your ideas off him.”_

_Erik grunts. Charles is right, of course, but Erik will never admit it._

_Charles leans over, hands sliding around Erik's neck. “Anything I can do to make you feel better?”_

_His tone is husky, his gaze drops to Erik's lips._

David pulls back as they kiss, not even because it’s weird to feel his parents like this—there has never been much privacy in a house full of telepaths, but because it feels too intimate, too private, meant for absolutely no one, but the two of them.

The image of Charles looking up at Erik just before their lips touch is stuck in David’s mind. For all that people say that he looks just like his father, that they can be mistaken from afar and from the back, there was a side of him that David could never emulate. That brave, open sensuality, that _pull_ that never relented, that kept drawing people to him till the end. That same unconscious power that his father had never been shy to wield that kept every second student of his blush and stammer upon running into him in the corridors of the Westchester mansion. The same power that still made Uncle Tony’s eyes go soft, and Uncle Steve sigh a little helplessly. The same power that made Erik fall in love with him every day all over again.

David doesn’t have that power, for all that he looks more like Charles's younger twin than his son. Jean has it, some measure of it, at least, but she only ever uses it with Logan.

Charles didn’t use it at all. He _was_ it. And David had never understood it until this moment.

He leaves them there, alone together, on a sunlit glade, sitting so intimately close, their foreheads pressed against each other. He pulls back slowly from Erik's mind, and is relieved to see that the waters of the bay have quieted, the bridge is standing still in the middle, docile and harmless.

He was right, of course. His cheeks are wet.

Erik opens his eyes a few moments later. His posture is no longer rigid with unbearable tension. He turns to look at David, smiles a pained smile. His eyes are dry.

“Thank you,” he says.

David nods and doesn’t say anything, because there is nothing to say. He’s still reeling slightly from the shock that he had known these two men his entire life, and still had never known _this_. It’s almost enough of a shock to dampen his own sense of loss, only, of course, it isn’t.

“He said something,” Erik says slowly, shaking his head, a confused expression on his face. “Just before he… He looked at me and said: ‘I will see you really soon, Erik.’”

David lifts his eyebrows. “Really?”

Erik looks at him. “He wasn’t religious.”

“No, he wasn’t.” David shakes his head. “But he told me once… I was six maybe, and I think I learned what death was for the first time. I got scared and cried. And he said… He said that the universe was too complex, too perfect in the way things are made, the way they come together. Too well-thought-out for it to be an accident. And if there is someone somewhere who had put that much work into it, it made no sense for all that effort to go to waste at the end of the day. I asked him what did happen then after we died, and he said he didn’t know, but that he was looking forward to finding out one day. That it was just another mystery to explore, and mysteries were exciting.”

Erik smiles slowly. “I can hear his voice.”

“What do you believe?”

Erik shrugs. “Most of my life I was a lot more cynical than that. I used to think there was just nothing. No hell, no heaven, just—nothing. But I cannot believe…” He clears his throat, has to start again. “After knowing him, I cannot believe that everything that he was would just—fade into nothing. It is—unthinkable. He was… too much. Too much to have just turn to dust. So perhaps he’s right.” A smile touched his lips. “He usually was, you know.”

David can’t help but smile back. “I know.”

They watch the bay for a while, almost content. Then Erik shifts tiredly. He is remarkably capable for a man his age, a byproduct of his Gift no doubt, but his years are showing now, as if whatever energy that was holding them at bay has left him.

“You should get the family together,” he says.

David cringes. The only thing worse than attending a state funeral for someone you loved is attending it when you’re the duke. He is the duke now. The thought feels strange in his mind, disconnected. His father was well loved… No, he was _adored_ by the people. There will be speeches, and sincere grief, and…

Abruptly, he realizes that this isn’t the reason Erik is asking him to get them all together. The shock of it makes him gasp and recoil.

Erik sighs, watching him. He steps closer, takes David’s face between his hands gently. 

“David, I’m almost a hundred years old,” he says with a small smile. “I think the only reason I’ve stuck around for this long was that Charles would have killed me if I had left him alone. I did that once. I promised him never again.”

“I can’t.” David pulls back. “Papa, I can’t, I can’t…”

He’s hardly a young man himself. He will celebrate his fifty-eighth birthday in September. It’s quite possible that his first grandchild will have arrived by then, if his wife’s suspicions about their eldest daughter are correct. He has been running the City for the past twenty-five years or so, with only a minimal input from his father. As far as David knows, anyway. Hell, he’s even started training Charlotte in statecraft. She is _his_ heir, for all that her head is still in the clouds from being recently married.

He is not a young boy, orphaned early, untethered and groundless. He has been his own man for a long time now. But the thought of losing his fathers, either of them, let alone both of them—he can’t handle that thought. Not today.

“We spoiled you, I think, Charles and I,” Erik mutters. “All of you. We’ve been around for too long. Neither of us had that, you know.”

David knows. It doesn’t make him feel any better. Just at the moment, he doesn’t care that Erik had lost his entire family by the time he was sixteen. He doesn’t care that his grandfather died when Charles was only five, that Charles had to wait for _twenty years_ to even become duke. Twenty years sound amazing to David right now.

“You’ll miss us,” Erik says. “Of course, you will. But you’ll enjoy it, too—having no one looking over your shoulder any longer.”

“I won’t,” David says, mulish. 

He will. He knows it. He knows Erik does as well. He knows also that his expression at that very moment must be identical to that of his father’s, because Erik is smiling ever so wistfully as he watches him right now.

“How far along is Charlotte?” Erik asks.

David blinks. “How did you… Ah. Father. Of course.”

Charles always knew. Sometimes, it felt as if he was omniscient. It made David’s childhood an exercise in ingenuity, whenever he felt like doing some mischief.

“Celeste thinks it’s about twelve weeks, but Charlotte hasn’t told us yet.”

Erik nods. David can follow his train of thought without reading him. When Charlotte was born, David took her to see his fathers. As he laid her carefully into Charles's arms, he said: ‘She has her mother’s eyes, Father.’ Charles looked up at him and smiled. ‘She’s beautiful, David. She looks like you.’

It skipped a generation sometimes, just as it did with Gifts. None of David’s children had his eyes. None of Jean’s as well. That unnaturally bright blue that they had both shared with their father, the same as the pair staring down from the huge portrait of the Princess Irina that has been hanging in the Westchester mansion for as long as David can remember. The woman captured in it had always seemed a bit too intimidating and too brazen to David, but both his father and Aunt Raven were inexplicably fond of the portrait.

Erik wants to see the baby, David knows. Hoping to look into those all-too-bright eyes on a new face again.

He kisses Erik's hand as he leaves, the imprint of Erik's palm against his cheek committed to sensory memory.

Aunt Raven. She is in Egypt now, visiting an old friend. She doesn’t know, David realizes. Probably neither do Wanda and Pietro, nor Lorna. That intangible divide between the five siblings, perhaps the only one there ever was. Charles was connected to all of them, but Jean and David didn’t have to rely on him to get the news. Wanda and Pietro had never felt left out, but Lorna was prone to throwing jealous fits when she was little, particularly in regards to David. There was an entire year when he was eight and she was four when she wouldn’t let Charles out of her sight. Then, Wanda and Pietro had arrived, and Lorna was suddenly seeking an ally in David. By the time baby Jean was born, delivered to them safely by the mysterious means of the Order, his relationship with his eldest sister was as close as ever, even though none of them could rival the twins in their connection.

David wondered at times who any of their mothers were. He knows Erik doesn’t know, and if Charles had, he had never indicated as much. The usual in such cases arrangement where a woman from a noble family but perhaps of some unfortunate circumstance would be selected for the role to both provide the duke with an heir and elevate her own social status had proved unnecessary when the Order had taken matters into their own hands. Speculating about their affairs was extremely unwise, and Charles had gone to great lengths to impress that notion on all of his children, even though David had never gotten the impression that his father was afraid of the Order.

Unwise it may have been, but sometimes David looked at Jean’s soft dark hair and her sweet heart-shaped face and then looked at Aunt Moira and couldn’t help but wonder… But the Order kept their secrets well, and Aunt Moira had never singled any of them out, spoiling the five of them rotten equally. More importantly, Erik had not killed her yet, the same way he threatened to kill Uncle Tony at every opportunity before pouring him more scotch. His papa, David knows, had always trusted his father unconditionally, but he held on to his grudges.

David should write to his siblings immediately, but that still doesn’t give him much time. Perhaps, he should appeal to Jean. Not the one who is his sister, but the Lady of the Order she was named after. The Order has a way of delivering messages fast. David needs his family here right now. His entire family.

He can sense Jean’s mind suddenly, touching his. His sister this time, not the Lady. She knows. She must have felt the connection break, just as he had this morning. Jean’s telepathy has never been as strong as his, and neither of them could match their father. But within the family, there have never been any barriers, not even with distance. Even Charlotte, who can only hear the thoughts of others if she touches them, could speak and listen easily when Charles was the one connecting them.

How many generations will it take, David wonders, before the full measure of his father’s Gift is reborn? How many pairs of grey, brown, and green eyes will it be before Charles's deep bright blue is seen again? He knows it’s irrational, but he can’t help but feel a little guilty that he hasn’t managed somehow to preserve the trait.

The touch of his sister’s mind is soothing. Deep inside, he had always felt closer to Jean than to his other siblings. And for as long as he can remember, he had always felt guilty about that. But they share the same Gift, and they both carry Charles's blood. Charles and Erik themselves had never made any distinction between their children, but David and Jean had bonded, despite the difference in years between them, when they had realized that they were both feeling it, a deeper sense of responsibility, an extra load of weight to carry.

David heard it his entire life. ‘My God, you look just like him!’ ‘Your father did the same thing when he was your age. Or was he younger?’ ‘I swear to God, you’re as clever as he is. In your own way.’

It always made him feel both incredibly pleased and slightly resentful. He loves his father as he loves breath and always will, but the man cast a big shadow. No matter how far David travels, he can never quite escape it.

His father had told him once: ‘I never liked the hand I was dealt, either. But it never stopped me from playing.’

He was being too modest, of course. It never stopped him from winning.

It’s strange, David thinks, that he has never grown to be truly jealous.

His wife greets him at the door with a quiet but fierce embrace and a kiss. The footmen look away as if they can’t see. The entire Xavier-Lehnsherr clan is unfashionably free with expressing their affection, which is regarded as a quaint but tolerable eccentricity by their peers and is tolerated with resignation by their staff and servants.

“I felt the ground shake,” Celeste says softly. “How is he?”

David wraps an arm around her shoulders as they move further into the house. “He’s all right for the moment. I had to… It got too much for him for a while.”

Celeste nods, but he can feel her concern. He reinforces his shields.

“Is it wise to leave him alone?”

David smiles, despite himself. “He’s not alone,” he says, realizing how right he is even as he says it. “He never is.”

He can sense that she’s confused, but she only nods again. “And how are you?”

David takes a deep breath, releases it slowly.

“I am… well,” he says. It is perhaps the biggest shock of all. “I am well.”

It’s odd not to feel his father’s presence, when he can still see it everywhere he goes. He wonders what it feels like for Erik now, the nature of reality curving around a sudden void, holding it at bay.

He calls for a valet to change into proper attire and orders the carriage to be ready to take him to the Red Castle.

\--

If Erik had been alive for his own funeral, he would have been incredibly surprised, David reflects seven months later. Erik had wanted a small, private ceremony—a luxury that could not be afforded Charles. 

David is beyond grateful to Lorna who had the foresight to make different arrangements. There is no way they would have been able to accommodate the staggering number of people who have shown to pay their respects otherwise.

Death rituals strike David as incredibly odd. Officially, both Charles and Erik are laid to rest side by side in the Xavier family crypt. The ceremony for Erik is loud with Charlotte’s newborn son crying his lungs out, all the people talking, and a harassed-looking priest stumbling through the rites. It’s an experience to survive.

But there is another ceremony after everyone is gone. At dawn, the next morning, David, Jean, Lorna, Wanda, Pietro, Raven, and Logan gather at the grave. No one says anything, but Lorna produces the steel watch with a stylized ‘X’ on it that Erik had once made for Charles and that Charles was never seen without. Erik had carried it for the past seven months, welded shut. Lorna releases it, but it doesn’t fall, held up in the air with her Gift, the one she shared with Erik. She will not be moving any bridges anywhere any time soon, possibly ever, but she can float the watch to the shared headstone and embed it there, the ‘X’ perfectly preserved.

“It had an engraving inside,” Wanda says, tucking a bright-red strand behind her ear. “I was curious, but I never asked Father what it said.”

“I did.” Pietro shrugs. “He smiled, but wouldn’t tell me.”

Lorna stares at the watch, and David can feel her reaching out with her Gift.

“Oh.” Her lips part slightly. “ _Every moment you are with me there are gods who envy us_.”

They all turn to stare at her. Pietro shakes his head, smiling. “Papa.”

Logan shifts from foot to foot, scowling. “So, are we doing this or not?”

It is Raven who nods and, glancing back, whistles softly. Kurt comes over, looking incredibly uncomfortable to be intruding. David smiles at him to soothe the boy. He has yet to get the entire story out of Raven, but seeing the gentleness with which his aunt treats him, the rumors about her intentions to adopt him are probably true.

“If…” Kurt says, clearly nervous. “If everyone would hold hands?”

They do, forming a small, tightly knit circle. Jean’s eyes meet David’s, and he nods at her. She closes her eyes and sends a projection straight to Kurt’s mind. When David looks up, they are standing on the familiar grounds of Iris Hall. The sweet air still has the power to transport them all back to their childhood, and he can feel them all relax slightly, breathing in deeper. Even Raven seems at home here. Silently, they begin to walk toward the river.

There are no bodies in the family crypt. Jean is carrying the urn that for seven months has contained Charles's ashes, and is now holding them both, completely dissolved in one another, hopelessly intermixed, never to be parted again. Because that was what the two of them had wanted.

Wanda stops, blinking back tears, leaning on Pietro’s arm. Raven and Logan only just overtake them. David and Lorna follow Jean almost to the water’s edge, but she goes in alone, mindless of her dress, though she leaves her shoes behind. They all watch the river as she spreads the ashes, early morning sunlight gleaming on the surface. The water must be ice-cold, but Jean doesn’t even shiver, standing motionless, hip-deep, her dark hair loose, floating in the wind.

David has a dream that night that he knows does not belong to him. He’s seeing through his father’s eyes this time. 

_A burly, red-faced man comes into what David recognizes is one of the parlors at the Westchester mansion. David had only really seen him when he was still too young to remember, but he knows him as Lord Kurt Marko._

_Lord Marko advances on Charles, an expression of malevolent glee on his face. Charles's heart is beating in his throat._

_“Good news, my dear stepson,” Marko proclaims. “You are to be wed to Lord Erik Lehnsherr. If you so much as think of running away, you will regret it, I promise you.”_

_Charles can’t even answer, for how terrified and desperate he feels._

_And then the dream changes with a gentle wave, Marko disappears, and Erik walks in, and they are suddenly in their old townhouse by the docks, and Charles is older, if just by a few years. Charles turns toward him, smiles, and the surge of love is so powerful that David wakes up, thrown out of the dreamscape before they could touch each other._

It’s the middle of the night, but he gets up anyway, knowing that pursuing sleep would be a useless endeavor now. He makes his way quietly to the kitchen for some chocolate and is not surprised to find Jean there, already setting up the small kettle over a brazier. She gives him a weak smile. The Xavier-Lehnsherr clan is also known for tending to their own needs at times like this, not bothering the servants.

They drink in silence for a while, the liquid hot and bitter, the scent of it strong in the air. Aunt Raven had left earlier with Kurt, but David can sense the rest of them sleeping peacefully. Eventually, Jean breaks the silence.

“Logan thinks we are obsessed.”

It takes him by surprise, and David snorts with laughter. He can’t stop it. He feels as if it’s been brewing there for a while.

“Logan is one to talk,” he manages at last. “I mean, he married _you_.” He loses his mirth instantly. “God, Jean, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”

But she shakes her head, smiling. “Don’t worry. You know that I know. And I actually pointed it out to him.”

It’s morbid curiosity, but David can’t help it. “What did he say?”

She grins. “Nothing coherent for a while, though there was a lot of sulky grumbling. Then, he said that I got my cheek from Charles.”

“Do you know, I think you did,” David says. “It’s a pity you never let anyone but Logan and me see it.”

She hums noncommittally.

“How is he?” David asks after a while. For all that he feels that they, as children, are suffering from the loss the most, Logan had been there since before any of them were even born. He’d been with Erik before either of them had even met Charles. He’d been with them through pretty much everything. David is suddenly worried.

Jean shrugs a delicate shoulder. “He’s… Logan,” she says at last, as if it explains everything. Perhaps it does.

She’d said the same thing when she’d announced to their parents that she was going to marry him. David still summons the mental picture of Erik's face sometimes, as the memory never gets old.

“We have Max and Marie to worry about,” Jean says, sending over a wave of reassurance. “And now we have Laura. He won’t have time to… dwell.”

Hopefully, so, David muses. Just as little Miss Morgan Stark—well, not so little these days anymore—became a lifeline for Uncle Steve after Uncle Tony was gone. He had even struck a close friendship with her mother, though that, given Uncle Steve, was a given.

“It never stops,” Jean says, watching him with a soft smile. “The characters change, but the story remains. Sometimes it feels like nobody ever truly leaves. And it’s… a good feeling.”

David covers her hand with his and squeezes it, holding back sudden tears. It’s not the same, but Jean is right perhaps. Even when everything changes, nothing really does, not where it matters.

He studies his youngest sister with fresh eyes. She’s always looked to him as a female, more delicate version of his father, same skin, same hair, same eyes, same mischievous twinkle in her smile. He can’t see it now. All those things are still there, but she is… Jean. Just Jean. Wholly and entirely herself. He can no longer see Charles through her, and wonders what the emotion that he is feeling is.

Loss, certainly. But also… 

Hope.

David sighs, smiles as Jean looks at him, and pours them both more chocolate.

\--


End file.
